Cap One Debt Court Ruling 2010

[Clark Griswold]

Capital One Bank (USA), N. A.
Balance: $4,704.79

I was laid off back in 2007 and defaulted on my capital one credit card. I was not in a good headspace and never opened my mail as it was always bills and collection notices. At some point a judgment was ruled against me in 2010 for the Cap One debt that I was unaware of (being taken to court) until I just received this letter from Patenaude & Felix, A.P.C. FKA Bleier & Cox, A.P.C. dated 2/25/19 this past week (it went to an old address). It reads I have 14 days to accept their offer (reduced to 70% - $3,293.35). 

1) do lawsuits show on credit reports? As I don't see it or anything under collections on my reports. 

2) is this place legit? 

3) now that there is a judgment against me, I need to handle this. Which honestly. I do want to as it was a debt I accrued at the time. But the amount of money is still a lot for me. Is this amount negotiable you think? I want to handle this personally and not wait to see what happens and next thing I know my accounts are drained and paycheck garnished. 

[WhoCares1000]

Do you know which court the judgement was handed out in? If so, you need to go to that court and request a copy of the case to find out what happened (such as how you were supposedly served). This way, you can determine next steps on how to handle this.

I am surprised that this is not on one of your credit reports since the CRAs usually have people who gather up cases and submit them for reporting. Then again, there is no law that requires anyone to report bad information on you so it might be a case of it falling through the cracks. Again, you need to get the actual case file to see what is happening.

As for the firm, they are a legit debt collector BUT they are also a bottom feeder using illegal tactics to get someone to pay the debt. It looks like they were forced to settle a FDCPA class action lawsuit in 2017.

The first thing you need to do is find the case file ASAP if there is a judgement against you. You can also send them a debt validation request to get a copy of the judgement but it may be that they do not have any current information on you and doing so will give them that information so be careful there. You can decide what to do from there once you have that information, either come up with the cash for settlement or try to work out a deal. If they do have a judgement, working out a deal will be hard because they can legally attach accounts and garnish wages. You might want to move most of your funds from your bank account and stop direct deposit if possible until this is resolved.